


melting tallow

by cashmiracles



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Gen, basically it's just me pulling some stuff out of my ass for character study purposes, idfk man, leos mother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 17:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7649689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashmiracles/pseuds/cashmiracles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>leo's mother dies and he tastes freedom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	melting tallow

He hadn't felt much when she passed. They'd found her body in the morning, sprawled out on her bed like a discarded doll, petticoats flared around her legs like she was the beginnings of a flourishing rose. Her lips weren't pale, her cheeks still pink. Mother always wore makeup, trussed herself up lovely in her boudoir mirror not only for the king, but for the sharp satisfaction of in seeing another woman stare in longing of what she had, of what they could not achieve. She held herself in esteem before she had given birth to her sole son, before she had the king's attention in full at his bedside and ousting Queen Arete of her own husband's chambers.

"Prince Leo, I have some terrible news." A servant had told him. "Your mother has passed during the night." He had asked to see her, frantic and terrified. He was taken to her side, the body cold and still, straight and hard from rigor. He'd laid his small hand upon hers, pale and slender, and he didn't move from her side for what seemed like an eternity.

He'd squeezed her hand tighter and tighter and the satisfaction he gained from such a petty gesture was immense but he found it distasteful. He'd left her there and allowed the servants to tend to her, do as they please, to dispose of her body. He didn't think much about it when he sat down with his toys and books that night and played freely for the first time in his life, allowed to sit alone and do what he wanted without an instrument, new book, new playmate or older associate to entertain being foisted upon him. He fell asleep on the floor amongst his toys with the warmth of a ( too pristine ) teddy bear as his comfort.

\---

His visit to the funeral was brief and merely out of courtesy. It was a lonely affair filled with the idle chatter of those who were there for the same reasons, and like him had little appetite for the deceased during life and thus spent the ceremony amusing themselves with gossip and intrigue. Leo had no such salvation. He had to sit there on a pew in the great temple as the body was consecrated by the priest and prepared for burial. He'd yawned. And nobody stared or remarked upon it

\---

He knew what a mother was meant to be and the ones who were the ideal never lasted long in court. He had seen them as servants and lay people who he passed by in the carriage, Leo just barely tall enough to see out the windows and sneaking peeks of the outside world while trying to avoid the judging gaze of his mother who wouldn't allow slouching nor craning of the neck.

No, he didn't feel sad but it was difficult for him to ignore that aching in his gut, bubbling up and exploding throughout him in a starburst of anxiety; never once waning through the weeks in its consistency although it lessened some. Everything he'd ever done had been for her, and not by choice. He had been at her side, constantly watched, primmed, powdered, clothed and redressed and done up like a porcelain doll on display and if he dared to even mess up a hair on his head she'd grip his arm so, so tight in public but behind doors it was another story.

He'd expected it to come every time he did something he knew he shouldn't. A sharp sting of long nails biting at his flesh through the veneer of cotton. But it never did, so he found himself doing small things he'd never been allowed to do. He took his time eating, cutting his food into small bits with the fork and leaving scraps for the servants to clean after much to his great amusement. He enjoyed staying up, reading by candlelight and awakening in the late mornings with the flame extinguished and the tallow nothing but a fat, melted blob which overflowed and crept down the sides of the silver chamberstick.

\---

"Leo, what was your mother like ?" Asked Corrin, sitting beside him with the moonlight catching in her hair like quicksilver. Leo paused, slender fingers with nails perfectly trimmed and kept tapping on the stone ridge of the balcony. 

"She was beautiful." And he said it as if he were offering a suggestion.


End file.
